2 new impeach raps vs Marcos hit a snag
A dispute over the submission of two more impeachment complaints against President Marcos has raised a cloud over whether they could even reach the committee in the House of Representatives that leads impeachment deliberations and are in danger of being thrown out based on a constitutional rule.
On Thursday, two groups—the Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan) and another led by former Ilocos Norte Gov. Luis “Chavit” Singson and former Rep. Michael Defensor—were turned away by executive director Jose Marmoi Salonga of the Office of the Secretary General (OSG) of the House, saying their chief, Cheloy Velicaria-Garafil, was out of the country and that he had no authority to receive their complaints in her absence.
Both complaints accuse Mr. Marcos of betrayal of public trust over the multibillion-peso kickbacks from flood control projects and alleged anomalies in the national budget.
Following the Constitution, a verified impeachment complaint is first submitted to the OSG and immediately referred to the House Speaker. Within 10 session days, the Speaker must include the complaint in the order of business. Within three session days of being on the agenda, it must be referred to the justice committee.
Once an impeachment complaint is received by the justice committee, it would shut the door to other complaints, and trigger the one-year bar to other complaints against the same impeachable official. The Supreme Court cited this rule when it nullified the impeachment of Vice President Sara Duterte last year.
Former Bayan Muna Rep. Neri Colmenares insisted that the rules of procedure provided only for submission of the impeachment complaint to the OSG and do not state that Garafil must receive it in person.
The Bayan group, however, opted to leave a copy of their complaint with the OSG to comply with the constitutional requirement without waiting for the House session to resume on Monday.
The first impeachment complaint was filed on Jan. 19 by lawyer Andre de Jesus and endorsed by Pusong Pinoy Rep. Jernie Jett Nisay. It was transmitted to the office of Speaker Faustino “Bojie” Dy III as of Wednesday.
Merely ‘ministerial’
In a statement, the Singson-Defensor group slammed the OSG action for “effectively usurp[ing] the constitutional authority of the House itself and denies the Filipino people their only lawful mechanism to raise grievances against a sitting President.”
The statement said that receiving and recording impeachment complaints were only “ministerial” duties of the OSG. “There is no discretion given to the Secretary General to reject, screen, delay, or block such filings,” it added.
Garafil served as the chair of Manila Economic and Cultural Office, the Philippines’ de facto embassy in Taiwan, before she was elected as the House secretary general last year. She flew to Taiwan to receive an award from Foreign Minister Lin Chia-lung.
The Singson-Defensor group did not leave a copy of their complaint and decided not to return on Monday when session resumes to submit it, suspecting that the first impeachment complaint was intended to block other more meritorious complaints.
“Why would we burden ourselves to go back here on Monday (and try to refile the complaint) and be part of the moro-moro when we know that the House would only take up the scam impeachment by De Jesus?” Defensor told reporters.
“We will still fight and we have legal options to discuss and to think about,” he added. “But not here anymore.”
In addition to Singson and Defensor, the group included lawyers Ferdinand Topacio and Manuelito delos Reyes Luna, Isabela Vice Mayor Harold Respicio, vlogger Catherine Binag and Virgilio Garcia.
An attempt to block
Bayan president Renato Reyes Jr. said the OSG’s action could be interpreted as an attempt to block legitimate complaints against Mr. Marcos.
“That’s the Oliver Lozano playbook from the time of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and they’re doing it again apparently now by preventing us from filing the impeachment complaint,” Reyes said.
Lozano was a former lawyer for the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos Sr. who filed six impeachment allegedly sham or weak complaints against Arroyo to serve as bars to other complaints.
Reyes said the OSG’s executive director could not assure them their complaint, if refiled on Monday, would be included in the order of business and referred to the justice committee alongside the first complaint.
“If we allow the impeachment process to be a rat race, what would happen is that every year, someone only has to file a weak complaint just to trigger the one-year ban and shield impeachable officials,” he said.
Nonetheless, Colmenares considered their filing on Thursday as good as “served … as we have already delivered it to the office.”
“Even under the rules of court, when the subject of a filing is not present, the substituted service is to leave it in their residence or office,” the veteran lawyer said.
Specific charges
“The Bayan complaint, which would have been endorsed by ACT Teachers Rep. Antonio Tinio, Gabriela Rep. Sarah Elago, and Kabataan Rep. Renee Co, accuses Mr. Marcos of masterminding the “systematic and large-scale plunder of public funds through a scheme of presidential and congressional ‘allocations’ for pet projects in the national budget.”
The complainants include former National Anti-Poverty Commission chief Liza Maza, former Bayan Muna Rep. Teddy Casiño, former senatorial candidates Modesto Floranda, Eufemia Doringo and Jerome Adonis, as well as various civil society leaders representing farmers, jeepney drivers, women and LGBTQI+ activists.
They cited allegations made by former House appropriations committee chair and resigned Ako Bicol Rep. Elizaldy Co as well as former Public Works Undersecretary Roberto Bernardo that Mr. Marcos and his allies had been inserting projects at all stages of the budget preparation in exchange for kickbacks.
“The Filipino people did not elect a President to preside over the systematic looting of their treasury,” they said.
“The magnitude of the amounts and brazenness of the acts point to the President as the ultimate recipient and beneficiary of the kickbacks. These were not rogue acts by a few enterprising officials, but the operation of a centralized commitment system where advance payments were collected before the budget was even passed and contracts awarded,” they added.
Cabral formula
The alleged insertions were done through the so-called “allocables formula” devised by the late former Public Works Undersecretary Maria Catalina Cabral.
Officially called the Baselined-Balanced-Managed (BBM) Parametric Formula, it was used in crafting the budgets of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) from 2022 to 2026.
In his 14-page complaint, De Jesus accused Mr. Marcos of culpable violation of the Constitution, graft and corruption, and betrayal of public trust.
The offenses he cited, included the President’s alleged order to kidnap ex-President Rodrigo Duterte to be surrendered to the International Criminal Court, and for being an alleged drug addict with impaired judgment and leadership.
According to him, Mr. Marcos also failed to veto unprogrammed appropriations and other unconstitutional provisions in the budget bills for 2023 to 2026 and had allegedly benefited from kickbacks from budget insertions and ghost flood control projects.
However, several lawmakers said that this impeachment complaint was weak. One of them, Caloocan Rep. Edgar Erice, on Tuesday said that the complaint “can easily be dismissed” due to its lack of form and substance.
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